Chapter Twenty-Three
On the last day of the Sawyer’s, a big summer picnic for all specializations is held on campus.
That morning, when Lewis and I arrive, the grass smells freshly cut, and workers string lights above the paths and drag fold-out tables and chairs to different corners of the green.
Still tipsy from the intensity of our confessions last night, I give my data blitz presentation, and though it’s not one of the contested full-hour lecture slots but a quick twenty-minute talk, I’m glad I get to talk about my models and how they help me gain a better understanding of memory principles in the human brain.
Afterward, Lewis moderates the discussion round that wraps up the academic program, and Jacob comes to shake his hand at the lectern.
As their hands meet, he leans in to murmur something, something that makes Lewis’s smile tense, but the handshake passes, the attendees applaud, and the lecture hall begins to empty.
Lewis rushes off immediately to pack his bags for his flight that leaves early tomorrow morning.
Rosanna catches me in the corridor on the way out, asking if I could get to the festival early.
“I have some exciting news,” she gushes, handing me a piece of paper with a phone number in blue ink.
“If we don’t run into each other, call me. ”
Back home, I pull on a flowy gray jumpsuit, text Lewis to meet me there, and head back to the Morningside campus.
The greasy smell of fried food hangs heavy in the air as I weave down the paths packed with carts selling German sausages, huge slices of pizza, Korean fried chicken, and crispy tacos.
I spot Vivienne and Jacob waiting at a stand selling funnel cake, but before I can make a decision whether to say hello or duck out of sight, someone else calls my name.
“Frances! Hoi!”
Rosanna motions me over to where she waits in line for drinks, clad in a purple tie-dye dress. She stands close to a petite woman with deep bronzed skin and dark hair cropped into a stylish pixie cut.
Rosanna touches my elbow lightly when I draw up next to them. “Frances, this is my wife, Maria. Maria, this is Frances, the postdoc I’ve been telling you about.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I greet Maria.
“Oh, you’re the promising programmer,” Maria exclaims as she shakes my hand, her grip firm and confident.
I grimace. “I don’t think there’s consensus on that.”
“She’s just gotten a grant rejection,” Rosanna supplies.
“Fun,” Maria says in a tone that promises the opposite. “I don’t miss those days.”
“You work in academia, too?”
Though before she can answer, we make it to the top of the line and Rosanna starts rattling off an order.
“Here, what would you like?” she asks me.
Once the bartender slides our three plastic cups over the counter—watermelon margarita for me, Moscow mules for Rosanna and Maria—we make our way to one of the sit-down areas where Maria manages to snatch a table.
Above us, the evening sunlight makes the roofs of the surrounding campus buildings glow.
“I used to. Work in academia, I mean,” Maria continues our conversation. “I have a PhD in bioinformatics, but I quit a few years into my postdoc. The environment wasn’t for me. I’m not as patient as she is.” Maria inclines her head toward her wife.
“And much more pragmatic,” Rosanna quips in.
“So what do you do now?”
“I run a small e-learning company.” Maria prods the ice cubes in her drink with her straw. “We launched an app a year ago that teaches people how to program and think algorithmically in a playful way. For now, it’s aimed at adults, but my goal is to make a module for teenagers.”
“Wow. That’s really cool.” Not that I’m surprised Rosanna would be married to another brilliant woman.
I’ve just never closely met anyone who’s made the switch into industry and founded their own company, let alone one that has such a meaningful purpose.
“How did you get the idea? And the courage? And the money? Sorry if that was too forward.”
Both of them laugh, then Rosanna says, “You’re talking to Dutchies. You need to try harder if you want something to be too forward.”
“When I was still working at uni, I used to teach all sorts of introductory programming classes,” Maria goes on.
“In computer science and engineering, most students were fine with it. But I noticed that the people in the biology department didn’t share those skills, particularly the older faculty.
I helped a few people, put together some exercises.
Word got around, and soon people from social science and psychology were emailing me for resources. ”
“I was one of them,” Rosanna interrupts.
“She was one of my worst students.” Maria laughs, and squeezes Rosanna’s hand.
“Anyway, at some point I realized that I wasn’t that interested in disease modeling anymore.
I spent more and more hours of my work trying to optimize instructions and teach people how to express their thoughts in code.
It was much more rewarding to me, seeing people make progress.
I felt like I had a bigger impact this way, giving people the confidence and skills for their research.
Regarding the money, it’s not so different from asking for grants.
You prepare, you pitch, and sometimes you’re lucky. ”
Rosanna taps Maria’s forearm. “You’re being too modest.” Then, directed at me, she continues, “You should see her pitches. She’s a mean presenter.”
“Oh, it’s mostly luck,” Maria waves her off and tucks her hair behind her ear. “So, I heard about the virtual environment you’ve programmed, and it sounds pretty neat. If you ever decide that the politics of academia is not for you anymore, here’s where you can find me.”
With that, she slides something across the table. A business card. On white cardstock, a techy-looking font announces Maria Benita, founder and chief executive officer, underneath a bright blue company logo that reads Codify.
“Thanks.” It’s only when I pick up the card that her words fully hit me.
I’m not used to being wooed for my skills.
I’ve occasionally wondered what working in industry would be like, but I’ve never seriously considered that I could make a contribution to the world outside of academia.
“Thank you so much. This is unexpected.”
Maria shows off a little gap between her front teeth when she smiles widely at me. “I know, but I’m being serious. Think about it.”
“Don’t poach her from me,” Rosanna chides.
Her wife shrugs. “You, my darling, haven’t even offered her anything. And I’m just saying,” she continues, studying me. “You have skills that we’d value and… Well, our working conditions are a little better, too.”
“Don’t listen to her, she’s overly negative about academia.
And speaking of jobs,” Rosanna says, a little more serious now.
“This is what I wanted to talk to you about. It looks like we do have funds to hire a postdoc in the lab. We hadn’t quite planned on this, but the person who was meant to start with us in October got his own funding, and we have money left to open another position. ”
It takes me a beat to parse her words, and I need to rewind them again to assure myself I heard right. Is it appropriate to pinch myself, right in front of these two incredibly smart women?
“You’d mostly contribute to one of the grant projects,” she adds, “but I’m sure there’d be some time for your ideas, too. Like the reanalysis we talked about the other day.”
A chance to work with Rosanna Alderkamp—it’s a dream come true.
A sure way of making a difference, even if it’s not with my own grant.
Her research is so close to my own, but much more refined and there’s so much I can learn from her that it wouldn’t feel like working for someone else’s goals while putting mine on the back burner.
“Stunned into silence.” Maria chuckles.
“Sorry, I…” I blink at Rosanna.
“Take some time to think about it,” she reassures me. “I also thought about what you said you wanted to do with your grant, about the model you built and the potential this would have to bridge the gap between neuroimaging research and electrophysiology.”
I nod, the familiar vocabulary of science pulling me back to reality. “We could use the 7T scanner in your lab, use a fast acquisition rate and…”
Behind the two women, a familiar shape pushes down the path, and I wave him over. I need to share the news with Lewis immediately, but as he weaves through the chairs and tables, there’s an unexpected tightness to his features.
“I saved you a seat,” I tell him when he reaches our table. “Lewis, this is—”
Maria jumps out of her chair once she spots him over her shoulder. The chair topples, and Lewis catches it with a laugh as she draws him in for a hug.
“Lewis! I heard you might be coming over for dinner more often soon,” Maria says, and the words make as little sense as her overly enthusiastic way of greeting him. “Gefeliciteerd! Congratulations on your grant.”
I know something’s up before I understand it, like when I pull together all the data after a new experiment but can’t figure out the pattern yet. Time slows down as my brain loops through the last two minutes and tags all the outliers in our conversation.
The odd familiarity between Lewis and Maria.
The funding for a postdoc position that magically has become available.
Lewis winning a grant.
Which grant?
My pulse thunders in my ears, my mouth suddenly dry. I blink up at Lewis, Maria’s arm still on his shoulder, his eyes transfixed on me.
“The Dutch Young Investigators Starting Grant,” Rosanna says to my right. I must’ve asked my question out loud.
An unreadable expression tints the blue of Lewis’s irises. He reminds me of an animal caught in the headlights, frozen and uncomfortable, two things he has absolutely no right to be.